{"id":17364,"date":"2014-02-04T00:15:10","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T05:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/?p=17364"},"modified":"2014-02-03T21:11:35","modified_gmt":"2014-02-04T02:11:35","slug":"hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/2014\/02\/04\/hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope For All"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SeekingHimLogo\"<\/a>
\nBut the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him,<\/span>
\n on those whose hope is in His unfailing love,<\/span>
\n to deliver them from death<\/span>
\n and keep them alive in famine.<\/span>
\n We wait in hope for the Lord;<\/span>
\n He is our help and our shield.<\/span>
\n In Him our hearts rejoice,<\/span>
\n for we trust in His holy name.<\/span>
\n May your unfailing love be with us, Lord,<\/span>
\n even as we put our hope in You.<\/span><\/p>\n

Psalm 33:18-22<\/span><\/p>\n

These verses are\u00a0like a salve to soothe the hurt each of us have\u00a0endured over time.\u00a0We never feel like it will at that moment…but it does. \u00a0One summer a friend of mine had a visit from her sister, brother-in-law and their three boys. \u00a0It was a very sweet time of fellowship and new friendships were developed\u00a0during the three week visit. It soon came time for them to return to their home and they were sorely missed.<\/p>\n

By October, the middle boy became gravely ill. \u00a0My friend left everything and went to be\u00a0with her sister. \u00a0Her nephew stayed in the hospital until the middle of November when, by God’s mercy, he succumbed\u00a0to the disease. \u00a0There was a webpage that was dedicated to having others offer prayer and support for this child and his family. \u00a0People from all walks of life and from all over the world were praying for his recovery, but God knew better.<\/p>\n

Through all of this my friend, whose faith had always seemed to be\u00a0unshakable, began to question God’s. \u00a0Why did He allow this to happen to her nephew, why didn’t He heal him, why are some healed and others die. \u00a0What was different in his case? \u00a0Did they not pray enough? \u00a0Did they allow doubt to enter their hearts? \u00a0Did they not ask the right church leaders to offer prayer? \u00a0My heart hurt for my friend. \u00a0I prayed for healing, but as they cut away the limbs of the child, I knew he might be better off in heaven where he could run and play with his dinosaurs.<\/p>\n

1 Peter 5:7\u00a0 says, “Cast all your anxiety\u00a0on Him because He cares for you.” \u00a0We may never understand why God chooses to heal one over the other. \u00a0But we have to trust that He knows infinitely better than we. \u00a0Our hope in these situations is that we will see each other in heaven, with our bodies whole—not scarred or broken—but made whole. \u00a0Sometimes all we can do is pray and listen.<\/p>\n

\u00a0* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Father, we love You and praise You. \u00a0Give us the wisdom to know when to encourage, and when we just need to listen. \u00a0There are questions we will never know the answer to until we see You in heaven. \u00a0Help us to know when we need to question and when we just need to have a child-like trust that You are in control. Help us not to be\u00a0angry with You, when things do not make sense in our limited human knowledge. \u00a0You have a bigger plan that we cannot see.\u00a0 In Jesus’ name, Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him, on those whose hope is in His unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine. We wait in hope for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. In Him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":13840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3020],"tags":[1176,3173,1287,425,5324,3174,1071],"class_list":["post-17364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-devotions","tag-1-peter-57","tag-daily-devotional","tag-gch","tag-girlfriends-coffee-hour","tag-psalms-3318-22","tag-seeking-him-devotional","tag-tina-marin","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SeekingHimLogo.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s39pHp-hope","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17364"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17553,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17364\/revisions\/17553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}